Steve Savicki
05-23-2005, 02:38 PM
http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/nation/11712798.htm
(KRT) - He speaks!
Howard Dean, so loquacious as a presidential candidate in 2004, has largely dodged the national limelight as Democratic chairman in 2005. But in his 99th day on the job, the pugilistic darling of the liberal wing finally resurfaced on national TV Sunday - and promptly buttressed his reputation for lobbing rhetorical grenades.
He said that the Hammer will probably wind up in the slammer.
He said that even though the owner of that nickname, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, has not been charged with any crime in any criminal court.
On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, host Tim Russert asked Dean about a quip he made on May 14, when he told Massachusetts Democrats that DeLay, the powerful Texas Republican who has been rebuked by colleagues for ethics violations, "ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence down there." Was it fair, Russert asked, to convict a man who hasn't been charged with anything?
"He hasn't been convicted yet," Dean replied. However, given the fact that DeLay has been formally admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee, and that DeLay is currently under investigation by a Texas district attorney, Dean felt comfortable making a prediction. He said: "There's a reasonable chance (DeLay) could end up in jail."
As a presidential candidate, Dean had said it would be wrong to prejudge the guilt of Osama bin Laden - "I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found." Russert wondered Sunday why Dean would want to adopt a looser standard for Tom DeLay. Dean replied: "I don't think I'm prejudging him."
So he won't revisit any of his statements about DeLay?
"Absolutely not."
Clearly, the new job hasn't mellowed the guy. Nor is it likely that his NBC performance will erase the nagging concerns within his party.
Sunday, he undoubtedly delighted his fans, the "Deaniacs" who believe that the Democrats, burdened by defeat, should get feisty and strike with impunity at the ruling Republicans. "I will use whatever position I have to root out hypocrisy," he said.
But Dean's judgment on Tom DeLay also provided fresh ammunition to those in the party who believe that his provocative style is a turnoff in the red states where Democrats need to win converts.
Democrats hungry for a message were probably encouraged by much of Dean's Sunday pitch, because he did sketch a party theme for the 2006 congressional races. Charging the GOP with "abuse of power," he argued that the majority party was running roughshod on all fronts: DeLay's ethics lapses; the Bush administration's refusal to disclose the true spiraling costs of the Medicare prescription drug benefit; giving taxpayer money to journalists in exchange for pro-administration stories; engineering a congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case.
As a believer in "message discipline" (his words Sunday), Dean essentially framed the parties this way: The Bush-era Republicans are dishonest and anti-privacy; the Democrats are honest and respect privacy.
"The Schiavo case will probably be the turning point, in our ability to make our case to Americans about the incredible invasiveness of Republicans, when it comes to (citizens) making personal and private decisions," he said. By contrast, the Democrats should be viewed as "the party of individual freedom ... individual and personal responsibility," he said.
One problem, however, is that while Dean may speak officially for the Democratic party, he's only one of many players. Sunday, he struggled to explain why so many Senate Democrats barely raised a whimper when the Schiavo intervention bill was sailing through the chamber.
Dean said: "I can't speak for Democrats in the Senate. We didn't confer. It came up very fast," at a time when Democrats were focused on derailing Bush's Social Security privatization plan.
But now he's fixated on the Schiavo fallout, and he thinks it will play well in places like Arizona, a fast-growing red state with a centrist Democratic governor, the kind of state that Democrats need to win in future presidential elections. He thinks the Schiavo case will hurt the GOP in Arizona, a place where so many conservatives have "a huge ethos about individualism."
However, when he visited Arizona last Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano was apparently too busy to meet with her national party chairman. Her staff said it was an unavoidable scheduling conflict. That happens a lot with Dean. This year, he has visited seven red states (pro-Bush in 2004) that are governed by Democrats - and, in every case, they have been too busy to appear publicly with him.
Dean's explanation Sunday: "When you go into a state for four or five hours, it's pretty hard for governors to change their schedule," omitting the fact that his itinerary is generally planned with sufficient advance notice.
In all likelihood, these governors were AWOL because there's still a belief that Dean, the New Englander who calls the GOP agenda "evil," is not necessarily the best party messenger.
In a recent conference call between Dean and Southern Democratic donors, one key activist pointedly urged Dean to stay out of his state. The antiwar image still hurts, even though some of Dean's early criticisms of the Iraq conflict have been confirmed by independent commissions; indeed, he contended Sunday that some of President Bush's war rationales have proved to be "flat-out false."
There also is scant evidence that Dean, a pioneer in grassroots democracy, has prompted a flood of grassroots money into party coffers. During the first quarter of 2005, the GOP raised far more money, $32 million to the Democrats' $13 million. Dean said Sunday: "I think that's fine. Republicans have always been better at raising money than we have." But he was hired as chairman to reverse that trend.
It's still early. Dean mentioned his plans to pump money and staff into moribund state parties in Republican regions, with the aim of competing across the map. But his challenge, as always, is to convince skeptics that his contentious straight talk is Trumanesque, and therefore an asset to a party still mired in defeat and in search of inspiration.
Dang - that's alot accomplished in such a short period of time.
(KRT) - He speaks!
Howard Dean, so loquacious as a presidential candidate in 2004, has largely dodged the national limelight as Democratic chairman in 2005. But in his 99th day on the job, the pugilistic darling of the liberal wing finally resurfaced on national TV Sunday - and promptly buttressed his reputation for lobbing rhetorical grenades.
He said that the Hammer will probably wind up in the slammer.
He said that even though the owner of that nickname, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, has not been charged with any crime in any criminal court.
On NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, host Tim Russert asked Dean about a quip he made on May 14, when he told Massachusetts Democrats that DeLay, the powerful Texas Republican who has been rebuked by colleagues for ethics violations, "ought to go back to Houston where he can serve his jail sentence down there." Was it fair, Russert asked, to convict a man who hasn't been charged with anything?
"He hasn't been convicted yet," Dean replied. However, given the fact that DeLay has been formally admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee, and that DeLay is currently under investigation by a Texas district attorney, Dean felt comfortable making a prediction. He said: "There's a reasonable chance (DeLay) could end up in jail."
As a presidential candidate, Dean had said it would be wrong to prejudge the guilt of Osama bin Laden - "I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found." Russert wondered Sunday why Dean would want to adopt a looser standard for Tom DeLay. Dean replied: "I don't think I'm prejudging him."
So he won't revisit any of his statements about DeLay?
"Absolutely not."
Clearly, the new job hasn't mellowed the guy. Nor is it likely that his NBC performance will erase the nagging concerns within his party.
Sunday, he undoubtedly delighted his fans, the "Deaniacs" who believe that the Democrats, burdened by defeat, should get feisty and strike with impunity at the ruling Republicans. "I will use whatever position I have to root out hypocrisy," he said.
But Dean's judgment on Tom DeLay also provided fresh ammunition to those in the party who believe that his provocative style is a turnoff in the red states where Democrats need to win converts.
Democrats hungry for a message were probably encouraged by much of Dean's Sunday pitch, because he did sketch a party theme for the 2006 congressional races. Charging the GOP with "abuse of power," he argued that the majority party was running roughshod on all fronts: DeLay's ethics lapses; the Bush administration's refusal to disclose the true spiraling costs of the Medicare prescription drug benefit; giving taxpayer money to journalists in exchange for pro-administration stories; engineering a congressional intervention in the Terri Schiavo case.
As a believer in "message discipline" (his words Sunday), Dean essentially framed the parties this way: The Bush-era Republicans are dishonest and anti-privacy; the Democrats are honest and respect privacy.
"The Schiavo case will probably be the turning point, in our ability to make our case to Americans about the incredible invasiveness of Republicans, when it comes to (citizens) making personal and private decisions," he said. By contrast, the Democrats should be viewed as "the party of individual freedom ... individual and personal responsibility," he said.
One problem, however, is that while Dean may speak officially for the Democratic party, he's only one of many players. Sunday, he struggled to explain why so many Senate Democrats barely raised a whimper when the Schiavo intervention bill was sailing through the chamber.
Dean said: "I can't speak for Democrats in the Senate. We didn't confer. It came up very fast," at a time when Democrats were focused on derailing Bush's Social Security privatization plan.
But now he's fixated on the Schiavo fallout, and he thinks it will play well in places like Arizona, a fast-growing red state with a centrist Democratic governor, the kind of state that Democrats need to win in future presidential elections. He thinks the Schiavo case will hurt the GOP in Arizona, a place where so many conservatives have "a huge ethos about individualism."
However, when he visited Arizona last Wednesday, Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano was apparently too busy to meet with her national party chairman. Her staff said it was an unavoidable scheduling conflict. That happens a lot with Dean. This year, he has visited seven red states (pro-Bush in 2004) that are governed by Democrats - and, in every case, they have been too busy to appear publicly with him.
Dean's explanation Sunday: "When you go into a state for four or five hours, it's pretty hard for governors to change their schedule," omitting the fact that his itinerary is generally planned with sufficient advance notice.
In all likelihood, these governors were AWOL because there's still a belief that Dean, the New Englander who calls the GOP agenda "evil," is not necessarily the best party messenger.
In a recent conference call between Dean and Southern Democratic donors, one key activist pointedly urged Dean to stay out of his state. The antiwar image still hurts, even though some of Dean's early criticisms of the Iraq conflict have been confirmed by independent commissions; indeed, he contended Sunday that some of President Bush's war rationales have proved to be "flat-out false."
There also is scant evidence that Dean, a pioneer in grassroots democracy, has prompted a flood of grassroots money into party coffers. During the first quarter of 2005, the GOP raised far more money, $32 million to the Democrats' $13 million. Dean said Sunday: "I think that's fine. Republicans have always been better at raising money than we have." But he was hired as chairman to reverse that trend.
It's still early. Dean mentioned his plans to pump money and staff into moribund state parties in Republican regions, with the aim of competing across the map. But his challenge, as always, is to convince skeptics that his contentious straight talk is Trumanesque, and therefore an asset to a party still mired in defeat and in search of inspiration.
Dang - that's alot accomplished in such a short period of time.